Panama Red

For everybody who asked me about the RB3D with patch and XP link that was discussed in another thread, it is located here at Wings of Valor: http://www.wings-of-valor.net/ (Thank you Dutch_P47M for finding it for me again). Once I executed this file (and following the directions to activate the XP fix), I installed the Glide Emulater dgVoodoo1.50Beta2 which allows you to set you screen relalution to what ever you want (mine is 1920x1200). From there you must determine if your FPS are acceptable, for me it was a little low, so I then installed OpenGlide_009rc9_Max256MB on top of dgVoodoo1.50Beta2 and this upped my FPS by about 40%. OpenGlide is not as complex as dgVoodoo, which is why if you want widescreen support (real widescreen, not just stretched screen) you must install dgVoodoo first and set it's parameters before overriding with OpenGlide. I then installed Reload, and that gave me some other goodies, including TrackIR support. Good luck and TallyHo.

Dutch_P47M Thank you, I looked all over for this link because it is the Wings of Valor site that has the patch and XP already included: http://www.wings-of-valor.net/ for those who want to play it again with their XP OS.

Canvas Knights as far as I can tell, Freeware.

Thank you, I've seen the same thing and was thinking that maybe my install was to blame. Now I know that I'm not the only crazy one.

Item 2. In an earlier thread, one of the Developers did say that if your clouds were set at "5", the AI could not see through them.

Dej: What you posted makes good sense, because if the Lewis had been a good candidate for synchronization, you would have seen more of them than just the synchronized Vickers on the Allied side. This also ties in logically with why the RFC kept the overhead Lewis too with all the problems with the synchronized Lewis. Flyby PC: You are not the only one to learn something today. Like I said, The Aerodrome forum has some good stuff, you just to sometimes dig to find it.

If you had a file become corrupted, you might never find it the normal way. For example, several months ago, I installed a new game onto my PC (my OS is XP) and it also installed a video app program (with my permission). After this, all of my TK flight games started having problems (white lines, spots, etc), but all other games were okay. I checked what sort of program it was and I found out that it was for Vista users to play the game. As a result, I un-installed the video app, but no change, I then tried a former restore point before I ever installed the game, but still no change. I even tried restoring a Ghost image from several months back and still no good. As a result, I finally fixed the problem with a complete XP re-install and now everything is working fine again. Drastic and painful, but sometimes the only cure if nothing else works. Good luck !!!

almccoyjr: That is still not the site where I found this version of RB3D. So far all the free versions of RB3D that I have found are over 200MB, but the version that I downloaded is only 183MB and the XP fixes are already included, you just need to add the Glide converter of your choice. With this version, I did not even have to worry about the "turbo" planes from a faster CPU that when the game was first designed. The only thing I had to add to this version was the Glide converter and Reload to get TIR to work. I just wish I could find that website again.

The best bet would be to ask over at The Aerodrome forum. They have some pretty knowledgeable people over there on some real WWI aeroplane trivia: http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/aircraft/

Be very carful about anything published in Wika, anybody can put something there without it being "fact checked". Anything you read in a Wika, you had better double check else where or you can be mislead. Here is a picture of the very French Nieuport 16 that I mentioned earlier: http://forum.combatace.com/index.php/topic/44888-se5a-very-very-nice-skin/ (look at post #9). So I guess according to Wika, this picture does not exist nor the facts that some the later French Nieuport 16's used syncronized Lewis's as documented other places ??? I will tell you that until I saw the picture in the above post and then read up on it, I to beleived that Lewis's machineguns could not be syncronized.

Not quite true. Some of the first Alkan syncronized machinegun French Nieuport 16's used Lewis machineguns mounted on the fuselage deck in front of the pilot. I not only have seen a picture, but the book "French Aircraft of the First World War" published by Flying Machine Press (on page 377) specifically talks about them.

I looked around today and can not find the original link from where I originally downloaded it from a couple of months ago, but if someone will tell me where to post the "RB3D_XP_install.exe", I will gladly do it for everybody. Plus I will give the secret on how to get it to run widescreen without stretching. Maybe we can get Polovski to host it since he still has a bunch of other RB3D files on his website !!!

I too have kept and old VooDoo 5500 PC just for RB3D, after all, it was my first REAL flight simulator. But just reciently I downloaded a RB3D package that was already been configured for XP with all the XP fixes necessary (you just have to add your favorite Glide converter). As a result, I not only fly at greater than 75 FPS with full graphics (far better than my old VooDoo 5500 PC), it is also configured for my widescreen monitor (1920x1200), without stretching.

First of all, I want to thank Stary for the wonderful new terrains. They really add to the FE game and I am really enjoying his mod. What got me thinking was two comments made in this thread: 1. Stary's statement about the Alpha rendering error causing the far item to be seen in front of the closer item 2. quack74's comment about all the X trees. After tinkering with the Cambrai_data.ini file (Alpha section), and thinking about what has been said, I think I can answer a couple of questions. I think that TK purposely set the Alpha rendering the way he did for a very specific reason. If you notice TK does not have a lot of trees in the stock FE game and I think for two reasons: 1. Older PC's with their FPS load 2. Alpha rendering. If you look at the stock FE trees when you fly over them, you will notice that you can not see the tree as an X, you only see the flat side that faces you because the way he has the Alpha rendering, so it looks natural up close and there are not a lot of trees to interfere with far items showing before closer items. When you add a lot of trees (Alpha objects), it brings out two problems in the game: 1. Your FPS drop with all the additional items that must be accounted for in the game 2. The "Alpha rendering" problem where the rear trees are seen in front of the closer trees By fixing the "Alpha rendering" problem, you create another problem and that is you now see the X trees as you fly over them since the game can no longer only show you the flat side of the tree, but must show you all of the tree. I do give Stary a big thank you for attempting the address the X tree problem caused by changing the Alpha rendering by including the tree base so the X is not as obvious when you fly the trees (but this does add a heavier load to the game). I am referring to his great "Green Hell 2" mod where he included three versions of his trees for each level of PC (high, medium and low). I guess this all goes back to the old saying "that there is no free lunch" and that everything you do has a compromise someplace. I just hope that Stary's additional tree shading will help solve the obvious X tree problem, because this is a really great mod that just needs the trees tweaked so the X tree "Alpha rendering" problem is not as obvious.

If you like reality, you need to leave it alone. In reading the book " Flying the Old Planes" the author constantly talks about how hard the controls are on his restored WW1 planes versus the modern planes that he flies.

I do not know about nVidia, but with ATI when I used the VGA connection before I hooked up my DVI connection, it would not let me "scale" the games either. Good luck and hopefully someone with your card can help you. You might try going here and asking the same question since this site is more tech orientated: http://forums.guru3d.com/

Depending on what video card you have (mine is an ATI), you have the ability to set in your video display (if you are using a DVI connection) "scaling" or "not scaling". This says to the video display to use the native resolution of the game (your case 1600 x 1200) and do not stretch it to 1920 x 1200. If you have an nVidia card, it should have some thing simular.

TrackIR4 with Trackclip is $100: http://www.naturalpoint.com/trackir/02-products/product-TrackIR-4-PRO.html TrackIR4 with TrackPro is $120. TrackPro attaches to a headset, Trackclip attaches to your hat brim. Make sure as to which one you want. If you do not use a headset, get the regular one with just the Trackclip for $100.

FE will run on Vista, but you might have some problems (just do not load it into your "Program Files" folder). As a result, TK does not guaranty it so he does not have to worry about any Vista users having problems and complaining to him.

Is this for XP or Vista ??? The reason that I ask is that I have XP and when I tried the original files, it did not do anything for me.

Mike: Your best option is to ask Stary since he was the one posting this "fix" in his WoV Green Hell 2 mod. Like I said, I could not get it to work when I tried it awhile back(may have been because I had a older PC at that time too). Send him a PM and I know he should answer your questions. I will tell you that if I use the F1 cockpit view, the "off center" view has a bit of the "hard edge" to it. If I center the monitor view where the "hard edge" was, it immediately disappears. If this is the case, it could just be part of the game engine and we may not be able to completely fix the problem. The only thing is that you appear to have it far worse than I have it, because I had to really look to see the problem on my game.

This is what Stary said in his Green Hell 2 mod, but I could never get this to work for me, but you are welcomed to try.: IMPORTANT, TRICKS! There can be some performance hit, it's normal given the number of terrain objects this mod adds to the map.The best would be to set the horizont distance to medium. Also turning off the shadows and canopy mirrors & reflections helps in gaining additional frames. Now the IMPORTANT part: The distance at which trees render is set by variable DetailMeshSize= where defaluts are 4 for low, 5 for medium and 6 for high, values are in KM? If you have strong system you may wish to increace the DetailMeshSize= to higher number. Values like 10, 12 or 14 seems to work ok on med-high systems, but you'll have to increase NearClipDistance=3000.0 under [NormalSceneClip] to avoid scene clipping issues (values like 35000, 40000 works ok).

Great addition to the FE game. Thank you very much Stary.

WW2 had gun cameras to verify the kill. WW1 relied on your fellow pilots to verify the kills. That is why the number of kills claimed by each side far excided the number of planes/pilots that ever flew for the other side (in both wars).

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Will install as soon as I get home. :yes3: